Living Things-Linkin Park,Review

Now that Thousand Suns has had two years to sink in, it’s easy to forget that Linkin Park were in the midst of a massive identity crisis at that time . However ,the first thing you notice about the whole album is that it is carrying a social message.It's like a part of the trilogy started by " Minutes to midnight",then, the "Thousand suns" and now this.There really is hardly any guitar on the whole album!The album has more of techno influence than rock.Granted,Linkin park still sound like a rock band!It was good to listen to the new music.One half of the album is absolutely amazing,with songs like lost in the echo which really will go down good with the die hard linkin park fans!But its really sad that the other half just doesn't live up to it. Tin foil,I felt was just a good lead into powerless,nothing more than that.The whole album more or less sounds like a combination of minutes to midnight and thousand suns.

The opening song,Lost in the
Echo, is the new Linkin Park with the exhilarating electro-rock groove. In My Remains, with it's calm and chanted bridge acts as an unexpected turnaround. Lies Greed
Misery, has a contorted guitar riff that snakes its way around Shinoda and
Bennington’s vocals before breaking up to form a part of a chewed-up climax that’s sharp an
raw.I like that about it! Unfortunately, the third track and lead single Burn It
Down, is probably the worst song the band has ever written and has hopeless lyrics . It destroys all the goodwill the album generates until now. Things get more interesting on the album’s second half, it has a more experimental edge. Victimized, characterized by Rolling Stone as “the band’s most aggressive track in years”, finds Linkin Park paying respect to punk rock bands like The Black Pacific , with the skit arranged curiously around explosive drums and a guitar riff (wow!). Skin to Bone and Roads Untraveled have a folk like touch to it. Until it Breaks features the guitarist Brad Delson on vocals which is a really good touch! Meanwhile, the instrumental track Tinfoil is about as useless as its name.

So over all though the album has a lot of great songs,but many turn up as just a little more than fillers! Though it is a polished album,I really hope the band comes back to its original hip hop and metal/rock smash up that we enjoyed and loved so much!Cheers!